Dr. Chan and metabolic syndrome program patient Iva Fisher.

VANCOUVER | If there is one thing Dr. Sammy Chan tries to get across to new patients, it’s that the Vancouver Metabolic Syndrome Clinic he helped establish is not a weight-loss program.

“People come in and they may say, just for example, they want to lose 50 lbs. in one year,” said Dr. Chan, the medical director of the Providence Heart and Lung Institute’s metabolic syndrome clinic at St. Paul’s Hospital. “We are going to turn around and say: ‘No, that’s probably not a realistic goal. You can lose 50 lbs. in a year but likely the next year you are going to gain 45 lbs. of that back.’ ”

He added, “That’s not what we’re interested in.”

What he and his fellow physician cofounders, Drs. Jim Frohlich, a member of the program’s executive team, and Dr. Andrew Ignaszewski, St. Paul’s head of cardiology, are interested in is helping pre-diabetic and pre-cardiac disease patients avoid further progression of their conditions.

“Even though most people with metabolic syndrome are obese, I’m not interested in just bringing about weight loss. I’m interested in correcting the underlying metabolism,” Dr. Chan told the Medical Post.

“Essentially the clinic is an intensive lifestyle-modification program,” he said.

The program, said to be one of the first of its kind in Canada, received a B.C. Medical Association Excellence in Health Promotions Award in June 2008 to recognize its efforts.

It was established in 2006 and is supported by an unrestricted, $1.6-million grant from pharmaceutical manufacturer AstraZeneca. As a result, physicians don’t bill B.C.’s Medical Services Plan insurance system for the patient-services they provide, unless an initial assessment reveals a concern worthy of greater exploration, Dr. Chan explained.

“We do not cost the government anything except what is medically necessary,” he said.

Patients pay no fees to participate in the program.

In fall 2008, the clinic grew beyond the confines of the downtown hospital to a city-run community centre in Riley Park in the South Cambie neighbourhood, thereby meeting one of Dr. Chan’s overarching goals: to push the program out into the community, making it easier for at-risk patients to discover and use.

“Most people with metabolic syndrome, at this stage, do not have vascular disease yet, do not have arteriosclerosis,” so they aren’t likely to go to a hospital for such a prevention program, he said.

As of spring 2009, more than 600 patients had been through the 18-month program that centres around weekly co-education classes on topics such as diet, stress and exercise. Most classes and other patient interactions are managed by the allied health professionals on the multidisciplinary team.

Patients are free to remain involved beyond the program’s 18-month cycle. Said Dr. Chan, “We keep in contact with them, and periodically we’ll give them a call and bring them back around and see how they are doing.”